ung herself
quickly on the breast of the youth, and put up the sleeve from his arm,
and beheld by the beams of the quarter-crescent that had risen through
the leaves, a small bite on the arm of the youth her betrothed, spotted
with seven spots of blood in a crescent; so she knew that the poison of
the serpent had entered by that bite; and she loosened herself to the
violence of her anguish, shrieking the shrieks of despair, so that the
voice of her lamentation was multiplied about and made many voices in the
night. Her spirit returned not to her till the crescent of the moon was
yellow to its fall; and lo! the youth was sighing heavy sighs and leaning
to the ground on one elbow, and she flung herself by him on the ground,
seeking for herbs that were antidotes to the poison of the serpent,
grovelling among the grasses and strewn leaves of the wood, peering at
them tearfully by the pale beams, and startling the insects as she moved.
When she had gathered some, she pressed them and bruised them, and laid
them along his lips, that were white as the ball of an eye; and she made
him drink drops of the juices of the herbs, wailing and swaying her body
across him, as one that seeketh vainly to give brightness again to the
flames of a dying fire. But now his time was drawing nigh, and he was
weak, and took her hand in his and gazed on her face, sighing, and said,
'There is nothing shall keep me by thee now, O my betrothed, my
beautiful! Weep not, for it is the doing of fate, and not thy doing. So
ere I go, and the grave-cloth separates thy heart from my heart, listen
to me. Lo, that Jewel! it is the giver of years and of powers, and of
loveliness beyond mortal, yet the wearing of it availeth not in the
pursuit of happiness. Now art thou Queen over the serpents of this lake:
it was the Queen-serpent I slew, and her vengeance is on me here. Now art
thou mighty, O Bhanavar! and look to do well by thy tribe, and that from
which I spring, recompensing my father for his loss, pouring ointment on
his affliction, for great is the grief of the old man, and he loveth me,
and is childless.'

Then the youth fell back and was still; and Bhanavar put her ear to his
mouth, and heard what seemed an inner voice murmuring in him, and it was
of his infancy and his boyhood, and of his father the Emir's first gift
to him, his horse Zoora, in old times. Presently the youth revived
somewhat, and looked upon her; but his sight was glazed with a film, an